The subjective observer is a fictional character

[Surendra Darathy]

You are going a little higher and talking about the Association Cortices (AC) of the brain where multi-modal sensory input is combined. It still doesn't matter. As the connections in your brain developed and the AC's became further etched by experience where the connections came from constructed meaning.

Examples of where this fails are found in synaesthetes. They have some overlap between two different association channels. The interesting thing that Ramachandran found out about that is that the confusion was always between two areas that had been found to be physically next to each other. This is strong evidence that physical wiring is where meaning comes from. Meanidn such as 'is it a number or a color'.

So you're saying that "meaning" consists fundamentally of "association". James wants you to tell him what areas of the brain light up when you associate this morning's smell of rose water with memories of your grandmother from when you were six. At least, that's what you would say, lying on the psychiatrist's couch!

Of course, you wouldn't be for that, but other sorts of "associations" might send you that way.

You and I would not be trying to construct a mechanical model for phobias and melancholia, involving a FSM, yet. James wants to say that the FSM is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[colubridae]

Why is the brain not an FSM?

Is it simply due to QM at synaptic junctions?

Otherwise AFAICS it is an FSM?

Complex to such an extreme degree, as to make it appear non-fsm.
But given the same intial state any brain would respond inexactly the same manner (excluding QM).

(Assuming: the exact same intial state = to all intents and purposes impossible to achieve)

I think that jamest is under the impression that this is not the case.

[Surendra Darathy]

Why is the brain not an FSM?

Is it simply due to QM at synaptic junctions?

Otherwise AFAICS it is an FSM?

Complex to such an extreme degree, as to make it appear non-fsm.
But given the same intial state any brain would respond inexactly the same manner (excluding QM).

Well, the brain, as such, is finite, when viewed empirically, no matter how complex its structure.

Speculation that brain is not a FSM, on the basis of speculative folk-QM arguments, does no one any good at this point. Even in that case, it is finite, if not a state-machine. Bending spoons will be the order of the day on that one. This should be easier done than said if spoons are just quantum foam.

The so-called "subjective" sense that one's "subjective experience" is somehow not limited arises from the vigour of youth. Live fifty, sixty, seventy years, and you start to realise that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and to keep that guttering flame of eternality burning in your own mind, woo is required. It's a coping strategy. Different strokes.

[SpeedOfSound]

Why is the brain not an FSM?

Is it simply due to QM at synaptic junctions?

Otherwise AFAICS it is an FSM?

Complex to such an extreme degree, as to make it appear non-fsm.
But given the same intial state any brain would respond inexactly the same manner (excluding QM).

(Assuming: the exact same intial state = to all intents and purposes impossible to achieve)

I think that jamest is under the impression that this is not the case.

I would claim it is a state machine but not finite. For one it never is in the same state twice. It is modified by every input.

So it essentially keeps adding possible states until it dies.

Still it FSM's are a good way to get started in looking at the brain. For james it might help him to understand that there is a context inside along with something coming from outside. He didn't seem to grasp that it wasn't an either/or sort of thing.

[colubridae]

I would claim it is a state machine but not finite. For one it never is in the same state twice. It is modified by every input.

So it essentially keeps adding possible states until it dies.

Still it FSM's are a good way to get started in looking at the brain. For james it might help him to understand that there is a context inside along with something coming from outside. He didn't seem to grasp that it wasn't an either/or sort of thing.

To the extent that, with grim irony, only god could place any individual brain, into the same exact state twice...

[Surendra Darathy]

I would claim it is a state machine but not finite. For one it never is in the same state twice. It is modified by every input.

So it essentially keeps adding possible states until it dies.

Still it FSM's are a good way to get started in looking at the brain. For james it might help him to understand that there is a context inside along with something coming from outside. He didn't seem to grasp that it wasn't an either/or sort of thing.

To the extent that, with grim irony, only god could place any individual brain, into the same exact state twice...

Well, I figure the fact that "Death" adds a bit of finitude to it. Don't forget that being alive is a "state". Even for a state machine. I guess the only instruction not permitted is "pause the tape". Have we the halting problem?

In brains, no meditation lasts forever. See my thread "metaphysics is necessary". For more, see my avatar. Woo! Woo!



Oh, dearie me! What a state I seem to have gotten myself into!

[colubridae]

For james


Get a nylon/plastic comb.

Go to a kitchen sink.

Turn the cold tap on to a low level, not drips, but only just continuous flow.

Comb you hair vigorously for several seconds.

Now bring the teeth of the comb very slowly to the flow of water, without touching it.

Tell me what you see..

If it doesn't work try this:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJrLwZMN0BM


LMAO

[jamest]

I have a question. I didn't know whether to ask it elsewhere - in another thread or in the science forum. But it seems to me that the question is highly relevant to this thread, so...

Why or how do we experience blackness, or darkness?

If we say that NNs are responses to the external environment and absolute darkness is commensurate with the complete absence of any visual stimulae, then how can we say that the experience of darkness is effected by the environment? It seems to me that an absence of visual stimulae should equate to complete blindness... and not to an experience of blackness. Blind men don't experience blackness - it has no meaning to them, just as say 'redness' has no meaning to them.
So, is it fair to say that the experience of blackness is something completely effected by the 'self' - which in this discussion = 'brain'?

I'm fairly sure that the same question could be asked of 'silence' too.

There might be a solution to these questions that I'm not aware of. But perhaps you can see my reasons for asking them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Play nice or leave. There will be no more warnings.

[SpeedOfSound]

I have a question. I didn't know whether to ask it elsewhere - in another thread or in the science forum. But it seems to me that the question is highly relevant to this thread, so...

Why or how do we experience blackness, or darkness?

See if this works:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ouZvGW ... ss&f=false

[SpeedOfSound]

Play nice or leave. There will be no more warnings.

Who has been misbehaving now?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Play nice or leave. There will be no more warnings.

Who has been misbehaving now?

Reading the thread will provide the information you need. The guilty parties will demonstrate their decision as to staying or leaving by their future conduct. I won't miss them, so I won't feel bad at all.

[Surendra Darathy]

It seems to me that an absence of visual stimulae should equate to complete blindness... and not to an experience of blackness.

You're asking about thresholds for visual detection. Even in a windowless room painted black, the walls (at room temperature) are emitting radiation in the visual spectrum. Just not enough to exceed thresholds. See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cortex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_visual_impairment

In fact, we might as well say we are blind to those details we do not register visually. We're blind to the bacteria trapped underneath our fingernails.

Cortical blindness can be associated with visual hallucinations, denial of visual loss (Anton–Babinski syndrome), and the ability to perceive moving but not static objects. (Riddoch phenomenon).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_blindness

Much available data bears on your question.

Likewise for sound awareness. At room temperature, air molecules are striking your eardrums and causing them to vibrate (a very little bit). That they are not doing so in waveforms of compression/rarefaction is what is undetectable to hearing, which is attuned to air vibrations in waveforms. That was what was required for survival out on the savannah. Human hearing is responsive to 20 Hz to 20 kHz, more or less, but that includes the mechanical behavior of the bones in the middle ear, and characteristics of nerves and the brain cortex. Dogs can hear what you register as "silence". There isn't any such thing as "silence".

[SpeedOfSound]

Play nice or leave. There will be no more warnings.

Who has been misbehaving now?

Reading the thread will provide the information you need. The guilty parties will demonstrate their decision as to staying or leaving by their future conduct. I won't miss them, so I won't feel bad at all.

Well. After this thread wraps up I think I'll be moving along.

[jamest]

Even in a windowless room painted black, the walls (at room temperature) are emitting radiation in the visual spectrum. Just not enough to exceed thresholds.

What about if I'm in a windowless room, with my head under the duvet and my eyes closed? I still experience 'darkness'. Is there a point when we have to accept that the experience is generated by the brain itself and has nothing to do with the environment?

There isn't any such thing as "silence".

I'm not sure about that. Certainly, what I know of as silence can be a wonderful experience. I'm not sure that a deaf man gets the same experience.